Pages

Thursday, August 1, 2013

FOUR FATHERS interview series: Tom Williams

Welcome to the first installment of our four-part author interview series! We partnered with Cobalt Press, a brand spanking new small press publisher, to help spread the word about their kickstarter event for FOUR FATHERS, a collection of fatherly essays and stories by contributing authors Tom Williams, Ben Tanzer, BL Pawelek, and Dave Housely. (The kickstarter event closes on Monday. Feel free to check it out and if you are so inclined, throw a few bucks at it. You know you want to. Would I steer you wrong?)

If you missed the publisher's introduction yesterday, click here to get yourself caught up. And then sit back and enjoy as Ben Tanzer asks fellow contributor Tom Williams why he parents and how parenting has impacted his writing.....

The Four Fathers Interview Series:

Tom Williams

Ben Tanzer: People always say why do you
write, so I would like to ask why do you parent?

Tom Williams: To both questions, I think the
answer’s the same: do I have a choice?

In parenting, though, it seems
there’s a difference between being a parent and parenting. You can’t have one
without the other, but to parent implies one is doing more than providing chromosomes,
one is actively trying to balance a desire to shape and mold with a desire to
open and avail one’s child to the world around him. I parent because I was
parented well, too, and want to know that my son feels the kind of connection
to me that I feel to my parents.

BT: How does being a father impact
you as a writer, be that approach, time, themes, any, or all of it?

TW: I think we all have less time
to do the kind of doodling and ceiling-staring that we used to do before. And
in that way, I think that becoming a father has made me use that time more
wisely and use it in a way that’s more productive. Also, when you’ve got, as I
do, a little guy running around and wanting to hear ghost stories about his
friends, the fiction I might be trying to put together at my desk becomes less
important. And in becoming less important, that fiction becomes easier to
write, because, like the ghost story I’m telling my son, it’s just finding the
right words.

It’s funny. Whenever Finn wants a
story, I’ll set up the exposition and he’ll say, “Suddenly, they heard a spooky
noise.” And while I’ve not incorporated too many spooky noises into my fiction,
I have been keenly more aware that all readers want more than just set up and
intellectual endeavor; they want something to shake them up.

And you know, another significant
change, which is evident in my second story in Four Fathers, “What It Means to
Be,” is that fatherhood has made me think a lot about being a son: both the
child I was and the adult I am now. I know that you, too, Ben, had the tragedy
of losing a parent while you were rearing children of your own. And it feels so
unmooring, so thorough, such a loss, and yet the one thing that never
disappears is the connection you have. The memories you keep. And I don’t think
I’ve even got that stuff started yet, that writing.

My biggest fear, though, is that
becoming a father has turned me soft. My wife and I can’t even hear mention of
tragedies involving children, will turn off the TV if the news anchors are
talking about a day care scandal or school bus accident. Yet it’s hard not to
be sentimental when you see a little human learning new words or eating with a
utensil for the first time or chasing a butterfly he will never catch.

Of
course, I wouldn’t be any kind of parent at all were it not for my amazing
partner and wife, Carmen Edington. Since conception, she's the one who's been
doing the real work.

BT: Has writing about being father caused you to re-think how you parent or
your previous perceptions about the experience?

TW: I feel like I didn’t want to write
about being a father, to be honest. Every time I’d start to write “What It
Means to Be” I’d worry that in writing down my fears that they’d come
true—which echoes fully my character’s concerns in sharing his past with his
son. In actually committing to completing the fiction, I found myself maybe
exaggerating rather than examining, as if to distance my true fatherly self
from that in the fiction. I hope that I’m a better dad than James, my
protagonist, is. Plus, I think there’s a certain narcissism in writing about
yourself as a great father. And, to go back to one of my earlier thoughts, who
wants to read about a dad who has nothing go wrong? What spooky noise upsets
the balance in that idealized portrait?

BT: Even when writing fiction, what obligations do you think we have to our
children in terms of reflecting some of element of their lives in our work?

TW: I think we owe them a fair analysis
of their lives. It’ll be interesting to see my son when he’s four—the age of
the son in my story “What it Means to Be”—because I’m doing a lot of guessing
what a four year old is like. Yet I’m fixing for that character a foundation
where he shares much more with my son than with my imagination.

BT: Do you think it’s possible to write pieces such as you have for this
collection and not think about your own father and you relationship with him?

TW: Right now, at the risk of sounding
schmaltzy, it’s the best it’s ever been, my relationship with my dad. But
what’s particular to it is that we never had an easy relationship before.
Here’s why, I think: My dad grew up without a father and in being my father he
had no one clearly to model himself after. Now he’s a grandfather and it’s
different: he did have a grandfather (even though that gentleman, my
great-grandfather, was born in the 19th Century). And I’d have to
say he’s warmed to the role of grandpa far better than I have as a dad.

But looking forward, and spinning
off far from your question, Ben, I’m projecting into a future where my son has
a son and how he’s got so much more to look back to for guidance. Not just me,
but my dad. His stories. I hope I’m around then. And if I’m not, I hope Finn
shares with his son my stories (the ones in this book and the ones I’ve told
him), and my dad’s stories.

Did I mention my fear that
becoming a father has made me the worst kind of sentimentalist? Cue sunset. Cue Ian Dury singing “My Old Man.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tom
Williams is the author of two books of fiction, The Mimic's Own Voice, and the
forthcoming novel Don't Start Me Talkin' (Curbside Splendor). The Chair of
English at Morehead State University, he lives in Kentucky with his wife, Carmen
Edington, and their son.

1 comment:

Same deal as yesterday: Pledge $30 or $50 to the Cobalt Press Kickstarter campaign and reference TNBBC and we'll send you FOUR FATHERS signed by all four authors. Just shoot an email to cobalt@cobaltreview.com after you make your pledge, and we'll replace the usual reward with this awesome bonus!

Currently Reading

Currently Listening To

TNBBC Merchandise

Who's That Girl?

I have been buried beneath small press and self-published review copies since 2009. My passion for supporting the small press and self publishing communities has driven me out into the world wide web to demonstrate alternative ways to spread the word about amazing publishers, authors, and novels you might never had heard of. Feeding your reading addiction, one book at a time.